You go to a lot of small communities in rural Alberta and you'll find a degree of diversity that probably hasn't existed in terms of immigration for a century - you'll find the Filipino grocery store, and the African Pentecostal church and maybe a mosque. Albertans are pro-immigration; they're also pro-integration. In my years in this province I cannot recall more than a handful of expressions of xenophobia or nativism that I've encountered. It's the land of new beginnings and fresh starts - it is rare Albertans who trace their roots here back more than a generation or two.

Finally, as I've said, this is - why are you talking about Jewish women's wigs and people wearing turbans? That has nothing whatsoever to do with niqab.

I have said explicitly from day one when I announced this policy in, I believe, November of 2011, that I and our government oppose the idea of banning the wearing of the niqab in public.

My response to my friend Naheed Nenshi was simply to say that some of the hyperbolic language that's being used to critique this sensible reinforcement of the public nature of the citizenship oath is, I think, unhelpful, and is actually inflaming the situation.

I think very few people in Canada are seeking - to regulate any public expressions of individuals' religions.

There's not a word in the Quran or the Hadith that requires that women cover their faces. To the contrary, the only requirement is that they uncover their faces when they're doing the haj.

For members who have only ever been in government, the negativity and aggressiveness of the opposition is easy to caricature.